Lost His Marbles

Marbles is/was a sport for kids, where competitors have small round glass beads which target others in a shoot, sometimes within a circle, sometimes into a pot.  (The modern sport of curling is not unlike this.) But the marbles, being small, were easily lost, and thus as when lost, their owner might look frantically for them.  Thus was born the expression “lost his marbles.”

I played marbles way back then.  It was a high pressure game, to make an accurate shot when big stakes (your own property) were involved. Big-time matches for a ten-year old, settled on an open field with strategies, skills, spectators, and cheering.

In the 20^th century it became a general expression within the language, and was used in two ways, to be angry or to be crazy.  The meaning has expanded, though it isn’t clear kids play marbles any more. 

So, what are those marbles that some people lose?  It usually refers to a sudden change in one or more of the following?

• Social communication ability
• Rational problem solving skills
• Keeping a job
• Reasonable parenting
• Stable behavior 99% of the time
• Not given to unusual social positions
• Customary dress
• Normal desires
• Customary attitudes
• Not supporting civil violence

It is easy to lose your marbles in the sense there are a dozen of ways to do it.  In brief, deviate from the norms, and you’re halfway there.  Stories about people who have lost their marbles are a popular theme in the movies.

What about other qualities? In the next list, too many “normal” people deviate so much within their spectrum of norms that changes are hardly noticed.

• Caring attitudes toward others
• Love of country
• Support of public leaders
• Vengeful behavior
• Greedy nature
• Gossip monger
• Deep hatreds or fears

Lots of examples abound, not just with Shakespeare’s host of tyrants such as Lear, Richard III, Macbeth, but also in the history of our personal worlds.

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She called her unplanned pregnancy a conceptual heir.